The de facto chief of South Korea’s Samsung business empire is set to face the verdict in his retrial over a massive corruption scandal.
If found guilty, Lee Jae-yong could be jailed for years, leaving the tech giant without its top decision-maker.
In a report by Agence France-Presse, Lee Jae-yong is the vice-chairman of Samsung Electronics, the world’s biggest smartphone and memory chip maker.
However, Lee Jae-yong has effectively been the head of the massive Samsung group for several years after his father was left bedridden by a heart attack.
Lee Jae-yong’s father died in October.
Samsung is considered the biggest of the family-controlled conglomerates, or chaebols, that dominate business in the world’s 12th-largest economy.
Its overall turnover is equivalent to a fifth of the national gross domestic product, and it is crucial to South Korea’s economic health, the report said.
Lee was jailed for five years in 2017 for bribery, embezzlement and other offenses in connection with the scandal that brought down South Korean president Park Geun-hye.
An appeals court dismissed most of his bribery convictions and gave him a suspended sentence the following year, but the Supreme Court later ordered the 52-year-old to face a retrial.
The case centers on millions of dollars the Samsung group paid Park’s secret confidante Choi Soon-sil, allegedly for government favors including ensuring a smooth transition for Lee to succeed his then-ailing father.
The scandal highlighted shady connections between big business and politics in South Korea, with the ousted president and her friend accused of taking bribes from corporate bigwigs in exchange for preferential treatment. (CC)
